Garda Vetting
Dear Parents,
The Board of Management has asked me to contact parents and inform them of new rules in place in connection with Garda Vetting and volunteering for any activities at school. Our school benefits greatly from parents taking part in various activities associated with the school. This could involve helping out occasionally in class with artwork or numeracy or literacy. It could involve looking after the library or an after-schools club. Any activity where a parent might have contact with children other than their own that is associated with the school could come under the rules mentioned above. These are laid out in a circular (0031/2016) from the Department for Education and Skills which is available at the following link ; http://www.education.ie/en/Circulars-and-Forms/Active-Circulars/cl0031_2016.pdf (It’s a hard read so please don’t feel you have to do so.)
Anyway, the long and the short of it all is that all adults who are volunteering with or employed by the school must be vetted. A new form for this has been devised and this is available at the secretary’s office. In addition to this a ‘statutory declaration’ must be filled out and signed by a peace commissioner or commissioner of oaths as well as a ‘form of undertaking’. And, as if that wasn’t enough, all persons applying to be vetted must also produce proof of address (recent utility bill, less than 6 months old – not a mobile phone bill) and photographic ID (passport or driver’s licence) and bring this to the school to be copied.
So, this involves a certain amount of time and effort on the part of any willing parent. I would appeal to you to consider putting yourself forward for this as we really depend on our pool of vetted volunteers at the school to help things to take place. There may be no specific reason right now to have been vetted, but, you may be happy to – for example – go on a school tour later in the year. The vetting process takes a number of weeks so it would be best to have gone through it and so be ‘ready to go’.
Any parent who has already been vetted before 29th April 2016 need not worry about this straight away. However, I understand that they will be retrospectively re-vetting these people. So, it might make sense to go through the process anyway.
Thanks for your attention. As I said, if you are happy to put yourself forward please, please do so. Just call in to Sharon at the office and she will give you the relevant forms.
Best regards,
Tomás